Chapter 692: Rook's Perspective

Chapter 692: Rook's Perspective

A brief flash of disorientation and Rook didn’t know where he was.

One moment he was walking to another boring meeting when he got what felt like a bit of luck. He wasn’t used to being so disrespected and seeing the brat alone without the princess around to save him felt like the perfect way to kill some stress and finally get a chance to turn the girl to a better option. He would teleport behind him and then teleport the guy farther into the deeps, with the water hopefully serving the goal of getting him out of his way and failing that, letting the currents do it for him.

It was what he’d intended at least, but what he got was the nearly instantaneous sight of the other man’s arm warping backwards, pressing something into him and leaving him somewhere new and unfamiliar.

Of course, it would have been utterly impossible to call wherever he’d ended up a normal location when he was inside what by all accounts looked like an endless black void, the only things it held being him, a small light, and a sheet of paper.

Both things he instantly ignored in favour of trying to get away. He didn’t know what sort of trap he’d fallen into but he wasn’t a space mage for nothing, it was the skill he trained in the most to ensure he’d always be able to escape a hint of trouble if need be and he instantly put it to the test as he reached out with his mana, trying to feel beyond the confines of his strange prison but coming back with more than nothing.

Not just an unseen wall and not an endless void either, as he stretched out his mana he felt it coming back at him, destroying his sense of scale and giving him no way to judge the size of his confines.

Impossible.

It didn’t make sense which meant there was some trick to it, he just needed to find it. There was no such thing as a room without end and even if he was being suspended in the air he could still propel himself with his power, moving out for what could only have been a few feet before his perspective changed, bringing him back to face the light and the letter once more.

“I’m being teleported,” He finally said, feeling like he’d gotten the trick of it and only growing in his rage for that fact. “That brat thinks he can best me, a ninth-leveled space mage, with some cheap enchantment of my magic! THAT ASSHOLE! How dare he, when I get out of here...”

His mutterings went on while he went, straining space itself in every way he could think to and failing again and again, still not understanding its construction, nor how it was keeping him in place, endlessly looping him back again.

He didn’t feel any magic in the act but knew that had to come down to a matter of skill in the enchantment, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it, but that skill only went so far. He may not have known much but he knew that an enchanter needed to hold the magic they were aiming to enchant with and if the brat had held space magic at a high level he wouldn’t have needed to be saved each time Rook attacked him. He was obviously on the low end no matter how much he was able to compensate it by having his enchanting awakened which meant it couldn’t actually be that powerful, only being a matter of breaking his way out.

That meant overpowering it and as much as he didn’t want to, Rook sat after that, letting his mana regenerate all he could before striking out with a far grander attack, trying to break beyond space itself and still coming up empty, leaving him on the edge of mana exhaustion with nothing to show for it.

Not wanting to pass out, feeling like it would be playing entirely into the other’s hands, he finally gave in and did the only thing he could do, reaching out to grab the letter, reading it by the small light for whatever clues it might contain.

—

My dear Rook,

Be well and do your best to reflect on the way a person facing eternity should act.

Lots of love,

Ben Heph

—

Crumpling the paper as soon as he was done, Rook didn’t give in. It was obviously left there to scare him, to make him believe trying to escape was pointless, but he wouldn’t accept it.

And it was like the brat had said in the letter. He was immortal, meaning he had all of the time in the world to get out. The fact that he’d so easily narrowed in on something that went beyond his fears was an issue but it was one he could deal with, especially when it was so obviously a bluff.

The world had no great space spirit, even people with only a superficial knowledge of the powerful forces that made up the planet were aware of that, meaning it was nothing but an attempt to scare him. At most, he’d be able to get the archmage to do something but even then, she wouldn’t be able to carry out the threat he’d just made, it was nonsense.

No, he couldn’t let himself be tricked, meaning that he had to get out to kill him, it didn’t matter how long it would take, he’d make it happen.

At some point, he’d accepted the mana exhaustion. It didn’t last long for him, as soon as he got a single point he was awake again unlike most people and he kept letting his pool fill up again and again before emptying it in its entirety, doing everything he could think to break free and not caring how often he failed.

At least that was what he was telling himself, but with each attempt ending the same as the last his heart started to tighten, telling him he really was going to be trapped there.

But who cares? He told himself after the dozenth attempt. It’s only a week. I’ll get out of here and then I’ll make him regret ever coming to the world. Just you wait-

His thoughts were cut off by the first change since he’d gotten there with the light turning off.

Something that shouldn’t have been surprising, it had been running for hours and he hadn’t refilled the mana that powered it in that time but it left him to fumble around for a bit until he could find it in the pitch black until he eventually grabbed hold of and poured his mana in.

An action that got him nothing. Not a flicker of light, not a speck of illumination, the world around him stayed dark with the enchantment that had been placed on it broken.

In that situation, with no way to escape and no stimulation beyond himself, Rook finally screamed.